Review

Rachel Swain’s “Old Familiar Way” has a nice trick to it, it takes the bones of a heartbreak song and gives them some kick. That choice really works. Plenty of country tracks get stuck staring at the mess. This one sounds more like it’s had the argument, ordered another drink, and gone back out into …

“Love Ain’t Everything” is the first Peningo Riders song that makes me think they’ve got more going on than a catchy gimmick. If you heard “Duck That Jeep”, you probably came in expecting another wink-heavy crowd-pleaser. This track takes a different route. It still has that bar-band-ready punch, but the mood is tougher, less playful, …

StarAV’s “falling down” feels like the kind of song that earns your attention by being real about what it is. I liked that straight away, it comes across like a song made by someone who cared more about getting the feeling right than chasing a trend, and that choice gives it a lot of charm. …

“Barfly Barbie” by Emma Forgette comes in with plenty of attitude and knows how to use it. What I like most is that the song is easy to follow. The title might make some people expect something playful and lightweight, but there is more backbone here than that. It has a steady, self-assured feel that …

“Northern Lights” by Sunstreets feels like a song for people who are trying to keep faith in something bigger than the life they are living right now. It has that open, guitar-led sound that suits the subject well, but what really stayed with me is how straightforward it feels. The story behind it helps too. …

The production is good and her voice is what actually sold me. It is not a showy performance. She is not hitting runs to prove anything. The control is quieter than that, which makes the lyrics land harder when you do catch them. I found myself going back not for a hook but to hear …

Kelsie Kimberlin released “Champ” on the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The music video is about Mariia Hnes, a 16-year-old karate competitor who won a medal in Venice, then walked off the podium rather than stand next to a Russian athlete for the group photo. Her father is now serving in the …

Sentinel Events named their band after a hospital term for worst-case scenarios, so calling their third album after a medical concept describing two conditions existing simultaneously feels less like a gimmick and more like a band that just commits to the bit. The Orlando art-rock group brought in eight collaborators, some recorded together in person, …

Strip a track down to solo piano and you usually get something you put on in the background and forget about. This is not that. Paul Terry, who makes music as Aptøsrs, has fully rebuilt “Rust Mountain” from scratch. Same song, completely different thing. The piano line keeps shifting, goes from almost hesitant to genuinely …

What works here is the honesty and the crowd becomes the turning point. Hearing people sing your words back to you when you thought you might fall apart is a specific kind of relief, and Exzenya captures that feeling without over-explaining it. You just get it. Her voice is the strongest argument for this track …

Sean MacLeod is no newcomer. As a founding member of Dublin’s Cisco, he spent years cutting his teeth in a band that earned serious attention at home and abroad, even recording with U2’s Paul Barrett and that history matters because you can hear it in how comfortable he sounds here. This isn’t someone figuring things …

The first thing you notice is how the two vocalists actually interact. There’s real friction in the exchange between Jordan and Bree, not in a dramatic way, but in the way real conversations between two people who can’t figure each other out tend to go. Neither one is playing second fiddle here, and that balance …

Twin brothers Anthony and Nicholas LaBarbera have been doing things their way since day one, and “Against All Odds” is the clearest proof yet that the approach is working. The London, Ontario duo strips everything back to bass and drums, and somehow that is all they need to fill a room. The track is strong, …

I’d heard Great Adamz before and liked him well enough, but a collab with a Romanian house producer? I genuinely had no idea where that was going to land. It landed well. Really well, actually. “Umada” has this slow-burn quality that lets you settle into it, and before you even notice, you’re already nodding along …

Trust me when I say this, give it two or three plays, and you will start catching things you missed the first time around, which says a lot about how much is going on beneath the surface. Lois Powell brings a vocal performance here that is hard to pin down in the best way. The …

Exzenya’s “International Power” is just wonderful. The rap delivery throughout is measured and deliberate, which is a smarter choice than going loud and aggressive, and Exzenya clearly understood that restraint can hit harder than force, and the track is built around that idea. She moves between rap-driven verses and more melodic sections without it ever …

Lee Switzer-Woolf has been quietly building something worth paying attention to. Two albums in, a vinyl double A-side behind him, and now this, a new single that takes a pretty sharp left turn from where you might expect him to go next. “I Might Be An Alien” is gloomy in the best possible way. The …

Kaia Fincher does not make music for people who want something easy to digest. “Take My Love” is about as far from a standard love song as you can get. The track sits in that uncomfortable, exciting space where attraction and recklessness overlap, the moment you decide to go all in on someone even when …